There is an old southern comedy routine about the difference between naked and neked. The difference ends up being that naked is our birthday suit as in Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden. Neked is different, it means you’re up to no good and you ain’t got no cloths on , as in “they were ne—ked!”
The Apostle Paul has a similar distinction in his writings, the two Greek words are soma and sarx, one means body and the other means flesh, and they are two very different things.
When Paul writes about the flesh and the power of the flesh he is writing about one of his two Big Projects, of discerning the difference between the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh. The many fruits of the Spirit all embody different kinds of sacrificial love for the sake of the other.
On the other hand, being enslaved to the works of the flesh is to be lost to the many types of self centeredness that uses others.
When Paul says bad things about the flesh he isn’t saying that our physical bodies are bad things or that the sensual nature of being embodied souls is a bad thing. He is rather writing about a way of being, a perspective, an attitude that builds up the self at the cost of others. The failure to understand this distinction has caused much trouble in the Church over the millennia.
But when Paul writes about the body, about the soma, he is writing about the greatest most beautiful mystery in all creation and that is what we hear today in his first letter to the Church in Corinth, the other Big Project.
More than anything else this is what moves Paul’s soul and sets his heart ablaze. When Paul writes about the body he is writing about the body of God moving through the Universe, healing the brokenness of Creation and setting free all those enslaved and lost to the brokenness of the flesh. The Big Project.
The Body of God, the body of Christ, the Church is restoring all things to the God intended order of creation which is sacrificial love for the sake of the other, love that is deep and for real, fully revealed in the cross of Christ and carried into the world by us, the body of Christ, God’s big project.
The body has many parts, many ministries, some strange, some mysterious, some profound, some simple, some out in the open, some hidden, some strong, some weak and gentle, a wild diversity all working together, going out of the way to honor each other for the glory of God and the healing of creation. By the simple act of going out of the way to honor each other the witness is made of creation being restored.
It is a diversity that isn’t based on control or mere tolerance but rather love for the difference of the other.
When the body breaks down, it is not because of disagreement, it is because disagreement isn’t honored with love. The holiest moment in the Church, the holiest ground that we walk on, isn’t when we are all clones of each other, it is rather when we disagree because that means that we are getting close to the deep ordering of the Universe.
It doesn’t matter what the disagreement is, the big project is that it is always the invitation to love deeper, to honor each other more, to sacrifice for each other more as we approach the holiness of God.
It isn’t easy. We have to get comfortable with discomfort, to expect it, to invite it and to honor it. It isn’t about getting along or being the same. The eye cannot say to the hand “I have no need of you.” The head cannot say to the foot I need thee not.
We need each other, all of us, not some, especially those that rub us the wrong the way, those are the holiest relationships, otherwise the body is broken and we never learn the deep ordering of creation, the power of love is lost, and we are up to no good, ne–ked.
The Good News is that we are given the power to become part of the Body of God and to be set free from the power of the flesh. Give up the way of flesh take up the way of the Body. Be the Soma, turn away the sarx, that is the Gospel according to Paul.
Don’t be one big happy family.
Be the body, mysterious and strange and wonderful and uncomfortable.
Need one another, honor disagreement with sacrificial love for each other.
Don’t just up and leave because you disagree that is the way of the flesh and it will doom you to a shallow faith and cheap love, you will miss out on God’s big project, love that is deep and for real.
The Big Project-be the body, discover who holds all things together and find the divine ordering of creation- the love that is deep and for real.